Author: The Conversation

When Star Wars was awarded the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects in 1978 it marked the first time the visual component of effects was differentiated from sound. Yet, even in this moment when visual effects (VFX) was first recognised by the Academy, it was already being pointed to as the destroyer of the auteur renaissance: an Hollywood era in which directors like Martin Scorcese, Stanley Kubrick and even George Lucas himself enjoyed unprecedented freedom to make the films they wanted to make with full studio backing. The financial success of films like Star Wars turned studios towards a strategy of event films. These…

The advent of 5G has raised many concerns among people, to the extent that anti-5G movements have emerged in various countries in recent months. Some extreme right-wing groups have even developed conspiracy theories linking 5G to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some activists have gone as far as setting fire to telecommunications towers in Belgium, the Netherlands and recently in Québec. A couple from Sainte-Adèle has been formally accused of setting fire to two cellphone towers; allegedly, they are behind a wave of fires that damaged at least seven towers in the northern suburbs of Montréal. The false news concerning 5G spread at lightning speed on social…

The world needs to engage seriously with China’s AI development and take a closer look at what’s really going on. The story is complex and it’s important to highlight where China is making promising advances in useful AI applications and to challenge common misconceptions, as well as to caution against problematic uses.

The stunning successes of artificial intelligence would not have happened without the availability of massive amounts of data, whether its smart speakers in the home or personalized book recommendations. And the spread of AI into new areas of the economy, such as AI-driven marketing and self driving vehicles, has been driving the collection of ever more data. These large databases are amassing a wide variety of information, some of it sensitive and personally identifiable. All that data in one place makes such databases tempting targets, ratcheting up the risk of privacy breaches. The general public is largely wary of AI’s…

Research shows that students are motivated to learn language through watching foreign language television programs. In the world of professional sports, baseball players, ice-hockey players and football managers have also claimed that television was a key resource for their language development.

The link between hot weather and aggressive crime is well established. But can the same be said for online aggression, such as angry tweets? And is online anger a predictor of assaults? Our study just published suggests the answer is a clear “no”. We found angry tweet counts actually increased in cooler weather. And as daily maximum temperatures rose, angry tweet counts decreased. We also found the incidence of angry tweets is highest on Mondays, and perhaps unsurprisingly, angry Twitter posts are most prevalent after big news events such as a leadership spill. This is the first study to compare patterns of assault…

There are so many different equations claiming to predict marathon performance. But these are not always very accurate because predicting marathon performance is difficult. However, in our new study, we showed that analysing the abundance of data produced during training and racing by wearable fitness trackers may be helpful. We found it’s possible to calculate a critical speed value that we can use to predict a runner’s marathon time with a good degree of accuracy.

Undoubtedly you’ve heard reports that hackers and even foreign governments are using social media to manipulate and attack you. You may wonder how that is possible. As a professor of computer science who researches social media and security, I can explain – and offer some ideas for what you can do about it.

While Apple still views itself as an innovator, critics point out many of its product innovations in recent years have been incremental – with calls for an entire new product category. And consumers have been finding it increasingly hard to distinguish between Apple and competitors like Samsung.

Emotions are the newest hot commodity, and we can’t get enough. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve come to rely even more on our digital devices, including to help manage our emotions. There are approximately 2.57 million apps available for Android users to download and approximately 1.84 million apps available for Apple users. Apps are those tools on our phones or tablets which help us monitor, record and regulate some of the most intimate aspects of our lives, from sleep and menstrual cycles, to food intake and finances. Many of the most popular apps in the West include the…